Wretched and Exalted (Homestuck, Aradia/Equius, PG-13/R)

Title: Wretched and ExaltedAuthor:eiviiaruRating: A pretty hard PG-13, maybe R depending on your sensibilitiesWarnings: BDSM themes, some violence, mostly-unrequited pairing; Equius POV, with all that impliesWord count: 636Summary: Even though it all went wrong, he'd stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on his tongue but "Hallelujah."Prompt: Homestuck, Equius/Aradia: "She tied you to her kitchen chair, she broke your throne and she cut your hair, and from your lips she drew the halleluja" (jeff buckley recommended)A/N: I'm really sorry this is so late! The prompt was for May 5th, but RL destroyed me this month. I also have a sneaking suspicion that this really wasn't what the prompt poster wanted, so I apologize for that. It's just what happened.

Aradia barely looks at him these days. Equius treasures every glance she spares him, eyes burning with lustful scorn, but they are growing fewer and fewer with every day they spend in the grey halls, and he suspects soon she will manage to ignore him entirely. The blackrom he kindled in her robot body is diminishing, day by day, replaced only by an unromantic and undisguised resentment -- a resentment she acts out by pretending she can't see him, that he simply doesn't exist.

Equius doesn't mind.

Even Aradia's disregard is electric, an unclean and delicious heat that grows in his chest and radiates outward. She is the dirtiest of lowbloods made beautiful and strong, so strong that she can cavalierly ignore him. Her disrespect for one so far above her, for the creator of her exaltation, kindles the most delicate hate he has ever known; he loathes her, and he cherishes that loathing. It is not what he built her new body for, but he cannot bring himself to be disappointed.

He built Aradia to break his bones, but her smoldering glares are substitute enough.

---

In the few feverish moments that Equius sleeps, he always dreams. His dream find him in one of the twisting hallways of the meteor, cornered by Aradia like a gutterblood trapped in its warren by the culling drone. She grabs one arm in her cold, strong hand and twists. His bones snap like bowstrings, muscles ripping wetly, and the pain sends him to his knees; in that moment, he knows he is a wretch, a chitinbeast unworthy even to be hurt by her. He does not beg or grovel, though, even as his eyes fill with pained tears and she stares down at him with carnal malice. She knows he has broken him, and he will not sully that by admitting it.

The dream has only begun.

Upon waking, drenched in sweat, Equius knows that his mistake was crafting the soulbot with indigo blood. The proper highblood is often called upon to be cruel, but it is against their nature to be imperious to one of their own position in the hemospectrum, and he knows instinctively that this is why Aradia has yet to break him as he longs for her to do. He should have built her soulbot with violet blood to imbue in her a knowledge of her station and her responsibility to destroy him as an insolent and hideous creature. It was his mistake, and it is only right that he is suffering for it.

In the dreams, the ragged hole in the soulbot's chest still bleeds, dripping blood of a color beyond sight, a color so high even the Condesce would genuflect. Aradia is wrathful and perfect, farther above Equius now than he ever was above her, and he knows in the last moments before his extinguishment that it is right.

---

Nepeta can see his weakness and tries her best to keep him distracted, as a good moirail should. Equius knows that she fears he'll act out to try and get Aradia's attention, but she, as a simple greenblood, doesn't understand what binds him. It is not his place to act against her, not if he wants her wrath to be born from caliginous lust and not a platonic hatred. If she chooses one day to destroy him, he wants to know in his last moments that she hungers for him as the howling fangbeast hungers for its prey. To die without knowing that would be to fail more utterly than he already has.

Equius will bide his time. Here on the meteor, they have nothing but time, and his dreams will feed him until she awakens to what he knows she wants. In time, she will bind him and ruin him, and he will be grateful. Equius is wretched, and he is beyond regret.